Inspector Jamshed Trailer: Did I Copy Pakistan’s Legendary Hero?

Inspector Jamshed is heading to cinemas in IJ: The Secret Parchment. There is just one complication: I created another Pakistani action hero called Jamshed in 1996. Here is how that happened

So apparently there are now two Pakistani action heroes called Jamshed. One is Inspector Jamshed, a detective who first appeared in Ishtiaq Ahmed’s Urdu novels more than half a century ago and is now becoming the star of a major international action movie. The other is Jamshed Khan, a Pakistani ISI intelligence agent whom I created back in 1996 and who is now the hero of my thriller novel, Silent Ruin.

Okay, time for some honesty. When I first heard about the Inspector Jamshed movie, I underwent quite a spectrum of emotions: surprise, curiosity, confusion, concern and a certain amount of annoyance. Hang on a minute, I thought. I have a Pakistani action hero called Jamshed. Now there is going to be a major film featuring another Pakistani action hero who is also called Jamshed. Isn’t this going to be a bit confusing?

Then came the slightly more alarming thought: will people assume that I copied him?

Who is Inspector Jamshed?

Inspector Jamshed was created by the prolific Pakistani writer Ishtiaq Ahmed and first appeared in Packet Ka Raaz, translated as The Secret Packet.

He went on to feature in hundreds of Urdu detective and espionage novels, written primarily for children and younger readers. Generations of Pakistani readers grew up with Inspector Jamshed, which makes my failure to encounter him until recently feel faintly extraordinary.

He is a police detective known for solving cases through observation, intelligence and deduction. He frequently works alongside his three children, Mehmood, Farooq and Farzana. His wider circle includes his friend Khan Rehman, scientist Professor Daud and Sub-Inspector Ikram.

The stories might begin with a conventional crime or mystery before expanding into something much bigger, involving dangerous conspiracies, international espionage, extravagant villains and threats to world peace. They combined detective fiction, family adventure, moral lessons and distinctly larger-than-life action.

To an outsider like me, Inspector Jamshed sounds a little like Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot combined with the Famous Five, with a dash of Inspector Gadget thrown in.

The IJ: The Secret Parchment trailer

Inspector Jamshed is now coming to cinemas in IJ: The Secret Parchment, scheduled for worldwide release in 2027. Omair Rana plays Inspector Jamshed, while Ahad Raza Mir appears as the villain Behzaad. The cast also includes Faran Tahir, Asif Raza Mir and Anoushay Abbasi, alongside performers from several different countries.

And I’ve got to say: bloody hell, it looks good.

I haven’t read the original novels, so I cannot judge exactly how faithful the adaptation will be. The family remains central to the story, while the scale has clearly received a full modern action-movie upgrade.

There are explosions, car chases, guns, gadgets, secret societies and enormous international stakes. Inspector Jamshed appears to have been fed through the Mission: Impossible machine, fitted with a James Bond tuxedo and dropped into Abu Dhabi to cause considerable mayhem.

Honestly, I’m in. I cannot wait to watch it.

Meet Jamshed Khan, the hero of Silent Ruin

My Jamshed is Jamshed Khan, a Pakistani intelligence officer and professional ISI operative.

The first Jamshed Khan novel is Silent Ruin. The story is set in 1996 and unfolds across a world of covert operations, political manipulation, international conspiracies and conflicts between personal loyalty and professional duty.

Jamshed becomes involved with Linda Carter, a British artist and photographer who inadvertently gets pulled into his dangerous world. He falls in love with her, and that relationship becomes central to the wider series.

Alongside the romance, Silent Ruin is packed with action, explosions, car chases, gadgets, secret conspiracies and enormous international stakes. That does sound rather familiar, doesn’t it? Stay with me.

Jamshed Khan is intelligent, capable and courageous. He is also flawed, conflicted and frequently pushed into situations designed to test his morals and loyalties. He works within institutions that have their own agendas, rivalries and secrets. He must decide whom he can trust while working out what duty, loyalty and patriotism actually mean when they start pulling in different directions.

Although Silent Ruin was only published in 2026, I originally created Jamshed Khan back in 1996, the same year in which the story is set.

He began as the protagonist of a comic book that was initially conceived as something of a James Bond spoof. The character quickly developed an identity of his own, and the story gradually became more serious.

I also imagined Jamshed as a legacy character who might appear across three entirely different eras. There was the contemporary secret agent who eventually became the hero of Silent Ruin. There was a futuristic incarnation working for an intergalactic enforcement organisation, catching villains and saving the universe. I even wrote some comic-book stories for that version to satisfy my urge to create science fiction. I also imagined an ancestral Jamshed as a swashbuckling princely warrior in 18th-century India, during the era of the East India Company.

I figured one Jamshed was never going to be enough, even before I discovered the other one out there!

Had I heard of Inspector Jamshed?

As a British-born Pakistani, I had no knowledge of Inspector Jamshed when I created Jamshed Khan.

I grew up in London. My spoken Urdu has never been particularly strong, and my ability to read it is extremely limited. Ishtiaq Ahmed’s novels were hugely popular across Pakistan and the Urdu-speaking world, yet they simply never crossed my path.

I first heard of Inspector Jamshed in 2025, when somebody told me that a screen production was being made about a character with the same name. Even now, I have not read the original books. They were overwhelmingly published in Urdu and have never been widely available in English.

That brings us to the obvious question: how did I independently create another Pakistani action hero also called Jamshed?

Why did I call him Jamshed Khan?

The answer begins with the letter J.

Think about the traditional names given to Western action heroes. John, Jack and James appear everywhere. We have John McClane, John Rambo and John Wick. Then there are Jack Reacher, Jack Ryan and Jack Bauer. Finally, there is James Bond and my personal favourite, James T Kirk, captain of the Starship Enterprise. Apparently, if you want to save the world, it helps enormously if your first name begins with J.

I wanted that same strong and familiar heroic sound while creating a character who was unmistakably Pakistani.

James Bond was an obvious influence on the original comic-book concept, and Jamshed shares a broadly similar opening sound with James.

I also liked the hard K sound found in heroic names, particularly surnames. Kirk has it. Khan has it. In fact, Star Trek appears to have negotiated some kind of bulk-purchase agreement on the sound. There is Pike, Picard, Decker, Sisko, Riker and even Kathryn Janeway.

When it comes to Pakistani surnames, Khan sounds solid, authoritative and majestic. It carries history, identity and weight. One of Star Trek’s most iconic villains also carried the name. So Khan became the surname.

Jamshed came from the music world. Back in the day, we were all fans of the Pakistani pop group Vital Signs. Its lead singer was Junaid Jamshed. I took his surname and used it as my character’s first name.

Jamshed Khan. To me, the name sounded heroic, solid, Pakistani and distinctive. Well, it did at the time.

It contained the J and K sounds I wanted and had the right rhythm for an action hero. I even called the first comic book Let’s Jam, a play on both the character’s name and the MacGuffin used in the story, which eventually made its way into Silent Ruin.

That is how I came up with Jamshed Khan. Inspector Jamshed never entered the equation because I had never encountered him.

What do Inspector Jamshed and Jamshed Khan have in common?

The two characters share some striking similarities. They are both Pakistani heroes. They are both called Jamshed. They confront criminals, conspiracies and international threats. Their stories feature intelligence work, danger, action and questions of loyalty.

Both also offer something that remains surprisingly rare: a Pakistani man placed at the centre of an international adventure as the hero.

They make decisions, take risks, confront villains and carry the story. Neither exists simply to provide technical assistance to a Western protagonist or get killed while helping him escape. That shared purpose matters far more to me than the coincidence of their names.

How are the two Jamsheds different?

Inspector Jamshed is fundamentally a detective. His children are members of his investigative team, and the family unit sits at the heart of his adventures. The original books were written for younger Urdu readers and combined crime-solving, adventure, moral clarity and enormous imaginative plots.

Jamshed Khan is a professional intelligence operative in an adult geopolitical thriller. His world is grounded in the genuine political tensions and covert conflicts of the 1990s. His relationship with Linda, his loyalties to Pakistan, his responsibilities as an agent and the moral consequences of his decisions shape the character.

Inspector Jamshed solves mysteries alongside his children.

Jamshed Khan enters places where governments would prefer nobody knew he had been.

Jamshed Khan returns in Shattered Faith

The distinction will become even greater in the second Jamshed Khan novel, Shattered Faith, which I am currently writing. That story takes place five years later, in 2001. The year itself is significant, and the novel moves into considerably darker and grittier territory.

The characters have evolved. The consequences of their actions are harsher, and the emotional stakes become much more personal. Shattered Faith deals with murder, betrayal and revenge, pushing Jamshed into a very different kind of journey.

I will avoid saying much more because I would quite like you to read it without me detonating every major spoiler in advance. I hope to release it before the end of the year, ideally before the arrival of the major new movie featuring another all-action Pakistani character called Jamshed.

The world is big enough for two Jamsheds

Initially, I worried that a major Inspector Jamshed film might overshadow my character completely. I found the situation annoying.

The more I thought about it, however, the more I realised that the world is easily large enough for two Jamsheds.

Western fiction has survived an entire army of Johns, Jacks and Jameses without civilisation collapsing. Nobody confuses James Bond with James Kirk, even though both spent decades travelling to exotic locations, meeting beautiful women, defeating dangerous villains and behaving as if the rules did not apply to them.

More importantly, I created Jamshed Khan because I wanted to see more inspiring South Asian heroes. I wanted a Pakistani character who occupied the centre of the story. Someone intelligent, heroic, desirable and complicated, with enough presence to carry an action franchise. He could make decisions, take risks, fall in love, make mistakes and save the day.

Inspector Jamshed represents that same wider possibility.

If IJ: The Secret Parchment succeeds, it could demonstrate that Pakistani and South Asian heroes belong in major international action stories. That benefits everyone trying to tell these stories. So I genuinely want the film to succeed.

You can enjoy Inspector Jamshed on the big screen when The Secret Parchment arrives in cinemas. You can meet Jamshed Khan today in the pages of Silent Ruin.

Go and read Jamshed Khan. Go and watch Inspector Jamshed. Support brown heroes, South Asian stories and ambitious action adventures wherever you find them.

The world needs inspiring heroes more than ever. Apparently, at least two of them are going to be called Jamshed.

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